I just came from Max's video. This is interesting. I'd love to do my family. Me & my cousins found out that our paternal great grandfather changed the family name but nobody knows why. Our grandmother spoke Polish at home but insisted that we were NOT Polish but German. We were all confused when we did our Dna tests around the same time and there was zero German ancestry. Which is doubley weird because her first husband, our dad's father, was supposed to be German too! He even had a German name. My mom's mom's side gets stuck because of the name Smith.
Given the generation and the Polish vs. German debate, it is likely this is almost certainly mixed up with WWII (although, depending on your age I may be off by 20-30 years). Is there any chance an ancestor was stolen as part of the Lebensborn program? Was someone in hiding to avoid being found by the authorities, and had to take on a new identity and nationality? It is even possible that you have pro-facist family members who needed to escape from the approaching Soviets, hoping for more lenient dealings from the Americans. As I said, I can't say for sure without knowing the age of your relations, nor more specific information from the DNA tests, but whenever there is any confusion in Europe regarding recordkeeping pre-1948, there is a good chance that WWII is the cause (either as an attempt to hide existing information, or as the result of combat destruction).
I find this one interesting because my mom always led me to believe her father's parents were Germanic, but when I did my first DNA test, I had more Polish than anything, and when I told my mom, she said yes, her dad's parents were both Polish [my mom has like 0 interest in this sort of thing, so its no wonder] and well, her maiden name sounds German [technically, her paternal grandparents were from AH empire and Russia, but well, both were Actually Polish]
The probable scenario is that she was Prussian. Until the 1870's, there was no "Germany." And when Germany did appear on the map, a good portion was in modern day Poland. (And for MANY years, there was no Poland either, which had changed hands (and I am really simplifying things here) and been divided between Russia, Austria-Hungary, and Prussia. In Prussia, there were many ethnically Polish people, but there were also a good number of Germanic people as well. (And yes, they DID intermarry.) In my own family, which was from Prussia, but all from within modern-day Poland, there were ethnic Poles, but there were also ethnic Germans. These Germans, however (in my case) had become a bit Polonized. The German men had married Polish women, and in most cases were Catholic rather than Protestant. (Not the case for everyone, and there were plenty who remained Protestant. ) And in any case, yes, they too spoke Polish. The Poles were their neighbors, friends, and in many cases family, despite many tensions between the two groups over the years. When you look at our DNA, we do not resemble modern Germans, despite definite "German" ancestry. Rather, we resemble most the people of Poland, among whom we lived for hundreds of years. (In some cases, Germans were inhabiting the area since at least the 1300's. My guess is that your Grandma was right, in that she felt and identified as a German. But most likely, the family did not originate in the modern borders of Germany, but in the former Prussian areas of modern-day Poland. If you look at the vital records of 1874 onward, you will see that these "Polish" records are actually written in German.
The border between Germany and Poland switched or became muddled multiple times in history, so it's possible her family lived in one of the contested border regions that considered themselves culturally German, but were native Polish.
@@MR-or6yvit’s also possible that they arrived in the US at a time when Poles were discriminated against. Claiming to be German would be more socially acceptable. That presumes they arrived after 1871 when Germany formed of course.
sadly, she could have also given birth prematurely (common with twins) and one twin was weaker than the either. But you are right that we may never know for sure. Loss at the time was rarely an open topic.
Twins can become growth restricted in the womb causing premature birth, stillbirth or miscarriages. It’s more likely that the twins were premature as one passed away.
Exactly this! I had similar questions when I realized my father was born only 7 months after his parents' wedding, but my dad and my grandma both confirmed he was born 2 months early after a very difficult pregnancy and traumatic delivery, and almost died as a newborn because of it.
My girlfriend gave birth to twins 7 months after she got married with no hanky-panky. I know! But her brother never let her live it down. Plus they weighed 3 pounds each
A crossover I didn't expect! But absolutely love. Sometimes it can be really hard to trace people and this was one of them. The oyster pirating bit was really interesting to me.
I have been working on my family tree for the passed four years and am glad I’m not the only one who ran into those issues! Genealogy is a fun rabbit hole to fall into ❤
Being a genealogist really is like being a detective, isn't it!! Complete with some of the same digging up of unexpected secrets 🤯Loved your explanation of your research journey, and the interesting historical side notes (like the oyster pirates! 🏴☠️) Max's genealogy is a great example of how basic demographic records like censuses can bring to light some pretty unexpected family stories...? And how much lateral thinking is needed to reconnect the gaps caused by records loss, war, scandal & just plain typographical errors or phonetic spellings!
You can thank Max for sending me and I thank you for a very interesting look into Max's family tree. Never did I think when searching for a recipe would I enjoy these little snippets of history.👍
Did you look on Arkivverket for the guy in Arendal? I've discovered that many Norwegians who emigrated were tracked, from their home municipality, in the new land, for the purpose of local histories of the Norwegian community.
Oh yeah, those Scandinavian Parrish registers are wonderful aren’t they? Reading the handwriting can be a challenge and then you’ve got to translate it. I discovered that when I went looking for my Swedish ancestors in them.
Oh, the hidden family secrets, especially on my grandmother’s side! Her mother, my Great grandmother Alida, never talked about her family to her children at all. Somehow, my great aunt Dorothy did find out why and shared it in a letter to a cousin’s son that he has since posted on Ancestry decades after Dorothy passed. When Great Grandma Alida was 12, her mother died of appendicitis at just age 31. Her father tried to keep the family together, but gave up after a year, farmed his three eldest daughters out to his in-laws, put his only son Bill into a Chicago orphanage, and took the baby with him when he moved hundreds of miles away from the rest of his kids. It seems that all of those children resolved to forget everything about their family history because absolutely nothing was passed down to any of the descendants. I connected with Bill’s granddaughter through Wikitree, and she said her father told her that Bill took all of his family photos when he had his first house built and bricked them up behind the fireplace-he never wanted to see his father’s face again, understandably so, imo. My Great Grandfather Jesse had a few stories to pass down, but just some vague details and one specific “fact” that my 6th great granduncle was Alexander Hamilton. (Turns out my research revealed that while I do have AN Alexander Hamilton in that spot, it’s not THE Hamilton. When I connected with a grandson of Jesse’s brother last month, I had to break that news to him, since that was the only story he had ever heard about his grandfather’s family. Bummed him right out.) However, I did find out why Jesse might not have talked much else about his family. His mother, my 2nd great grandmother Carrie, walked out on her marriage when Jesse was just five. She took the girls with her, but had to leave the boys behind with her ex. It took her five years to get all four of her children back with her. She did (and paid) everything to do so, but I imagine a young Jesse just being really confused over why his mom was no longer with him. Then she went on to become a real independent woman with no interest in following society’s rules, which I can imagine that, if he even knew half of what his mom did in her 50s and 60s, Jesse was not interested in sharing with his impressionable daughters. (She spent the 1920s as a trance medium and Spiritualist pastor in Oklahoma City, and her third husband was a “divine healer.” She was arrested for illegal fortune telling and her appeal was reported in papers across the country, since she and her lawyer were trying to get the appellate court to rule on whether Spiritualism was a religion.)
Could this have had something to do with the workhouses and why it was so difficult for carrie to get them back? this was a thing happening all the time where the kids got sent to the workhouses. Some had no parents while others because of financial reasons were given to other family members or left with the ex-wife or ex-husband, only for them to go under financially soon after or they simply decided they didn't want to look after them resulting in them sending the kids to the workhouses. But there was a lot of cruelty going on back then in the workhouses and tried keep them there and wouldn't let the mothers or fathers get their kids back, it took a few years to get them back after persistently trying and they had to pay money to get them back. These workhouses started to be dismantled in 1930 but it took until 1948 until they no longer existed and knocked down but in that 18 year period they still existed and people of all ages were still caught in them. The biggest thing influencing the culture back then was always finances because women still had to find suitors that made enough money to still live even a bit comfortably so there was a lot of moving around not knowing who would go down financially or because the husband or wife died and back then it was very common for women to die in or after childbirth.
Wow, I came here from max’s channel and watched the newest video. I have been stuck on research from my family on my moms side. They came from the Azores, and had their name Americanized. I know of the islands they came from, but have met a wall for the last few years. My dad was adopted and we have been able to find his mother, but unable to find his father. The fathers side of the family seemed like a bunch of weirdos, so we didn’t pursue with contact. Also, cool thing we found out, twins run like crazy on my dads side.
WOW very interesting. I love Tasting History. I also love genealogy which I am daily involved in for my own family tree. Have been watching this channel for genealogy discovery and greatly enjoy your research.
What a stirling piece of research! Hope you will update us if DNA provides further clues. I'm here from Max's channel, but you've just gained another subscriber.
Interesting, I have zero experience with serious genealogy. I did try to trace back my family history to the early 1900s at one point, but I think the issue you mentioned, of names getting tweaked, became my stumbling block. So interesting to see how much work goes into this process.
If it's just tweaking, you can try to go by sound, let go of the spelling of names. It's really about the 'sounds like' factor. Oftentimes the person who wrote the name down didn't hear it well and just made something up he/she thought they heard. Also take into account that some languages change certain letters, like in Spanish a W is pronounced like a B (example: Willy becomes Billy) When in doubt, Wikipedia has excellent pages on languages and can sometimes help you further.
@@micahphilson - My German immigrant relatives named "Ewert" ("w" pronounced like a "v") changed their names to Evert and Everett in order to get jobs on the lead up to WW1 with its anti-German sentiment. However, I do not know what they did about their accents! ^_^
While it's certainly possible that Florence was expecting at her wedding it is also possible that she wasn't. She gave birth to twins and twins often come early. On top of that one of them died within a month so it is possible that the twins were quite early and the small twin had failure to thrive. Must have been so heartbreaking for the parents to lose the baby.
Twins are often born early. A single pregnancy lasts about 40 weeks, but a twin pregnancy often lasts between 35 to 37 weeks. More than half of all twins are born prematurely (before 37 weeks)
My German grandmother met my US grandfather in WWII. When she came to the US she forgot her German life. Said it wasn't worth worrying about. She still had her accent but never spoke her 1st language anymore. She didn't even like us to say we were German. I've always wanted to know more. At the end of her life, she would let things slip here and there but when she realized she did she would quit talking. I tried to get her to fill out one of those grandmother books and all the answers were barely a sentence. I feel like I lost out on a lot of things one does with their grandmother because of this. Don't get me wrong she was a wonderful woman. I miss her dearly and would give anything to have her back but sometimes when I see things like this I just wonder.
@R.P.-hw2rq we are Czech to be more accurate. She was born in 1928. When we asked about history she told us the here and now we live in is what is important.
I know, searching for census data in Germany is hard, two world wars and Soviet occupation will do that. I do suggest trying though. A place to start is if your Grandfather was in the military, he’d have to get permission to marry a foreign national and that form would have a lot of potentially useful information. If nothing else you might learn some German as a result, viel glück.
@CAP198462 that's great info. Thank you! They've both passed but I'm sure I can find something online now that I have a starting point instead of blindly going into it especially not knowing the language. Knowing "I love you" & "goodnight" is not going to get me to far lol.
Fascinating history and intriguing mysteries. It seems that many families have similar unexplained elements because they were topics not discussed openly even within the family. So such details are forgotten over time. Thanks for the research and sharing this part of history.
So happy you enjoyed it! I was going to include a little blurb about the 1979 teachers strike but decided to cut it for time. I did see the photo you have of your grandmother at the strike and holding a picket sign!
Lovely to share this as an admirer of Max. I am very fortunate as a Brit because records go back a long way and indeed my own family tree extends to 1208 when I think the family came from France.
Oyster Pirates! I had no idea this was such a thing. My family settled in an oyster area in Cuba coming from Portugal in the late 19th Century. It would be interesting if they had any dealings with Florida and bringing oysters to the states.
So Max's maternal grandmother AND maternal great grandmother were both lifelong educators? And now he teaches me about history and food on the internet! Must be in the DNA! :)
love seeing how people trace their families back! both sides of my family have been doing research--i seriously need to get copies!--so i know some bits of history. however, i don't know much beyond my great-grandparents and where they lived in kentucky. did learn some interesting history regarding my maternal grandparents and how my mum was born 5 months after they married, and my great-grandparents on mum's side eloped when he was not given permission to marry grandma. from what i was told, he showed up on either a donkey or a mule and they snuck off to the next county over to get married :D
Very interesting! I hope to see a part 2 with more information someday. I spent some time researching similar strange name inconsistencies in my own family tree. This was from the late 1800s. The names were similar, Olridge, Aldrich, Ullrick, etc. but I couldn't figure out why the records didn't match up. The story I discovered was absolutely fascinating. Turns out my 3rd great grandfather was kidnapped in New York around the age of 5 or 6 and was made to be a traveling street performer by his kidnapper. Several years later the kidnapper fell ill and died, leaving my ancestor stranded in Salt Lake City with no family at approximately 13/14 years old. Being so young when he was kidnapped, he didn't know how to spell his surname, so he just guessed on spelling whenever it was necessary. He got a job as a cattle herder and eventually settled down and married. Years later a traveling salesman came to the door and hearing my grandfather's name said that his wife had a younger brother with a similar name who was kidnapped 30 years ago. They put the pieces together and discovered that this traveling salesman was in fact his brother-in-law. My great grandfather was able to reconnect with his family and learned the true spelling of his name. However by that time he had already married and had children under an assumed spelling. So that is how the family name went from Ulrich (to Alrich to Ulrick to Oldridge) to Allridge.
I had a funny (to me) conversation with a distant cousin who couldn't imagine why the paternal line DNA test for one of our our officially-named great-great-great-grandfathers didn't match that of one of his middle son's branches of the family, from which my cousin descended. There was dead silence on the other end of the line when I suggested to my cousin that someone else could have fathered that son. I think his head finally exploded when I went on to suggest that the encounter might have been consensual, or not, from g-g-g-grandma's standpoint. We have several instances in both sides of the family where women identified on the census as widows when their husband had been committed to an insane asylum, or after a divorce, or as head of family with an out-of-wedlock birth. In another case, a great-grandmother in the old country worked as a household servant in a town several valleys away from her hometown and bore a son to whom she gave her own family surname--the biological father not documented in Church or government records. A few years later, she had returned to her hometown and married a man with a different name, but our grandfather kept his mother's family name, which we have today.
@jomercer21113 - I have family in Iowa where a boy born in early 1900s is listed as the son of his mother's husband who had died TEN YEARS before his birth. Stretchy!
What an interesting tangle of mysteries! I’d done the tip about the name with family names before but never thought to try it on given names- I’ll have to give that a go for folks with more unique given names in my research!
So fun when two subscriptions collide - what a story there is all twisted up in there...hope you can share the results if any more facts come to light!
At around 4:20 you suggest a shotgun wedding, as the person mentioned would have been 2 months pregnant at the time. You do realise that it isn’t unusual (especially at the time of these births) to give birth to twins prematurely. After all, it’s a lot of extra baby for the uterus to carry. So perhaps the babies in question weren’t conceived out of wedlock at all. It’s just speculation either way this far down the line.
Good point. That could easily have been a Wedding Night pregnancy, or even a couple with an already planned wedding jumps the gun a little, thinking it won't make a different, only to end up with twins that come early. Eight weeks preemie is a little early to survive in those days though, but not impossible. I suspect she was 3-4 weeks pregnant at the time of her wedding, and likely didn't even know.
I've had a few people mention this and it isn't something I had realized previously, but it is definitely a good point to consider when analyzing the story. A perfect example of how each little piece of knowledge can help reshape a hypothesis. When I first realized the 7 month difference while researching, I researched how likely someone might know at 2 months pregnant but didn't check twins might be born at 7 months (didn't really even think about that). So I did have a bit of confirmation bias in the research for this hypothesis, but I also realized I didn't have true confirmation and that's why I made sure to say we may never know.
This is an excellent concept Jarrett. May I suggest you spend a little time on presentation quality (see Simon Whistler 3 year changes as example) to induce some prospective guests to participate. Also include a quick blurb at the beginning to ensure there is permission for disclosure etc. this builds confidence in both potential guests and our view of your professionalism and integrity. Becomes part of your YT story. Good luck and a great concept rather than the earlier Impressions.
@@GeneaVlogger you and your site have enormous potential. Be uncompromising in your integrity, consistent in your delivery times, incorporating tight relational historical events and reflect to your audience the compassion and excitement of your findings. Max can give you the feedback better than I can.
I noticed something that looked weird to me at 17:59 In the birthplace section it has the following listed: (City or town): Norway. (Country or State): Sweeden. I noticed this because Sweden is misspelled and as far as I know we don't have a small town named after our neighbor country. Neither do I believe that we ever spelt Sweden with two "E". Figured it would be worth pointing it out in case you think there's more to it.
Yes! I will also be doing other episodes exploring other lines of Max's family tree as well! For each guest on my UA-camr Family Trees series, I plan to multiple videos on their families.
I just started following Max's channel, so I'm really looking forward to finding out where DNA leads you. And here I thought MY family history was convoluted!
@katharinegarrison2568 - Or, if the woman WAS pregnant at the marriage, it doesn't mean it was a "shotgun wedding". The two people make have truly been in love and wanted to marry.
People change their names for all kinds of reasons. When my dad was a child, in southern Russia, his name was Johann, but he was variously called Hans, Vanya and Ivan, depending on who he was talking to :) When he came to Canada in 1925, he kept the initial H for his first name, and picked Howard. I have no idea where that came from. He chose John as his second name, because that's the English version of all the other names (except Howard). He kept his last name, but his grandfather had long before changed the spelling of the name for business reasons. So he was known to all in Canada as H. John ... :)
Interesting. Was your dad Volga German? Because there used to be German communities in what was the Russian Empire up until the mid to late 1930s when the Soviet Union committed several attacks on the Volga German communities which resulted in many dead and many more exiled from their homeland. That would explain why he was called Johann when he lived in Russia. If you want there are several resources online covering the Volga Germans but I have to warn you the article on the Great Purge is sickening. A lot of lives were lost because of suspicions held by the Soviets about the intellects and Bolsheviks as well as those who protested the government at the time.
@@mirandagoldstine8548 My dad was born and raised in Molochna colony, the oldest of the Mennonite colonies in that area, closest to the Black Sea. Two of his uncles were executed by the bolsheviks for ... being alive? They fled to Germany and sailed to Canada in 1925. The stories of that time are horrendous, especially those told of a man called Machno, who was one of the thousands released from prisons and asylums as the bolsheviks moved south. He gathered a gang around him, and was responsible for many atrocities. The Volga Germans, who suffered similarly, were a more diverse group, mostly Catholic and Lutheran, I think.
My mother's maternal grandparents also changed names when they arrived in America but in their case they were Austrian Jews and had been chased out of several regions due to changing attitudes about Jews. When they came to America they decided to give themselves a French last name and claimed they were Catholic. They were just tired of the persecution.
@@meedwards5 The desire to fit into a new community is probably a really common reason for people to change their names. I hope they found the better life they were seeking.
Here from Max's video. This is all so interesting. I'm curious about my family genealogy. I have someone on I think my mom's side who's traced one of the branches back to WWI, Then he lost the trail...
My paternal grandmother's maiden name was Hulse. I had never heard that name other than related to my own family tree until now. I always wonder about that family. Twelve kids with only two male. The two men married as did two of the women including my grandmother who didn't marry until she was in her thirties. The rest of "the aunts" lived together in a big family house, remaining unmarried their entire lives.
Some of my ancestors were oyster planters down in the Chesapeake Bay, in Virginia :) I wonder if the cultures were similar or different between oyster planters in the south and north
BTW family lore is that Lillian's mother had been a prostitute, and Holbrooks parents removed her from her home when she was a child and brought her to Port Washington.
Do you know if any of your half-1st cousins through Thomas and Lillian have done DNA tests? Would love to compare them to Max's mother and see if they match as full 2nd cousins or half-2nd cousins.
My half Cousin Lynn, granddaughter of Lillian has an autosomal DNA available on Ancestry and GEDMatch if you're interested. There's only one other half cousin living, but he's not interested in his family history.
Maybe not a shotgun wedding. Premature births are not uncommon with twins. Still... Those who study DNA and family trees say that somewhere around half of those who take the test find surprises and shocks.
One thought about Florence and the timing of the birth of there twins: it MAY have been a shotgun wedding but twins are usually born earlier. Research shows that half of twin pregnancies are 37 weeks instead of the usual 40.
I would probably try putting the oysters on a muffin tin, so the muffin spaces would hold the shells more or less upright… no idea if that would work, though.
@jennypaxton8159 - I tried that recently when I was out of Kosher salt. It did not work for me. I ended up putting the oysters in a cake pan, balancing them on the top of their shell "lid". It worked okay, but not great. The wet salt works well as the shells can nestle down in the salt without tipping.
While each episode will be coming out months apart, there will likely be many episodes just on Max's family tree. For the Miller side, we had Max take a Big-Y DNA Test from FTDNA 😉
An onscreen graphic of the speculated family tree every now & then as you go along would be such a help, if it were not too much extra work to edit in...? I was definitely getting a bit lost towards the end there...although it sounds like that was more or less your team's experience, too!! 🤭 Amazing to know how just following one person's ancestry can bring so many apparent mysteries to light - intrigued to see what new leads the DNA testing provides you all.
That was interesting. I wonder if Lyle would do a calibration of doing a genealogy with you? Lyle, is from Scotland but grew up in Australia. He also is a YTer. His YT channel is Patrol Nation.
Twins are often born early. Being premature would explain the death of one twin. There was no reason to insult the memory of a woman who isn't here to defend her virtue.
My grandpa did our genealogy waaaay back to the time of Charlemagne. I'm related to Guilford Dudley who married Lady Jane Grey (queen until Bloody Mary had her head and Guilford's heads chopped off), the "special friend" of the virgin queen, 2 very famous criminals, Martha Washington, and more. The most recent slightly famous is my great aunt who is considered the grandmother of the art of chainsaw carving. Also, 2 months early is not shocking for twins especially back then, and if they were premature one dying so young would not be at all shocking either.
My cousin and I are trying to uncover something too 😳 my cousins are each others cousins makes our aunt her first cousin. Our aunt comes out as unassigned to me on ancestry.
I wish I could know more about my dad’s father’s father’s family. I have very little to no knowledge of them. I think my great, great grandfather’s name is Joseph Scott Toler, but beyond that I have no knowledge of their lives, professions, and other details about them as regular people. The my father’s father’s great grandfather was a mayor of East Bank, WV. I have very little knowledge of him either. My Grandpa’s parents both died at an early age. My great grandma died from childbirth, my great grandpa Toler died by being stabbed in the back at least seven times by his brother in law (supposedly, I can’t find out for sure, I’m just given the information from his son). Anyone else confused as I am by now? Ugh.
Hey I was just wondering I took a dna test and I was expecting to be 25% indigenous and 75% white. My results came back as 97% white and 3% black. No indigenous. Could this be a mistake or have I been lied to? I’m adopted.
IMO Max Miller's Tasting History is one of the best foodie channels on YT.
I’m trying 😂 haha
another short form one i like is BDylanHollis
@@ZoahPorre Agreed, he's fun to watch and he's genuinely interested in the history. I believe he gave a shout out to Max in one of his videos.
@@infowarriorone yep yep i seem to remember that!
Along with Strictly Dumpling he is one of my favorite foodie content creators.
With twins it’s pretty rare to go full term. They may have just genuinely been premature - not a situation of pregnancy outside of marriage.
Yeah I was gonna say - Twins rarely make it to full term. It's very, very common for them to be born premature.
@@TirielWoWespecially with the second twin not making it out of infancy
And… at that time, very few women knew they were pregnant before four months. No symptoms, no show
Just came from Max's channel! This is exciting!
Me too 😅
@@laurastreleme three
Same here!
Me too! So good!!!
Same here
I just came from Max's video. This is interesting. I'd love to do my family. Me & my cousins found out that our paternal great grandfather changed the family name but nobody knows why. Our grandmother spoke Polish at home but insisted that we were NOT Polish but German. We were all confused when we did our Dna tests around the same time and there was zero German ancestry. Which is doubley weird because her first husband, our dad's father, was supposed to be German too! He even had a German name. My mom's mom's side gets stuck because of the name Smith.
Given the generation and the Polish vs. German debate, it is likely this is almost certainly mixed up with WWII (although, depending on your age I may be off by 20-30 years). Is there any chance an ancestor was stolen as part of the Lebensborn program? Was someone in hiding to avoid being found by the authorities, and had to take on a new identity and nationality? It is even possible that you have pro-facist family members who needed to escape from the approaching Soviets, hoping for more lenient dealings from the Americans.
As I said, I can't say for sure without knowing the age of your relations, nor more specific information from the DNA tests, but whenever there is any confusion in Europe regarding recordkeeping pre-1948, there is a good chance that WWII is the cause (either as an attempt to hide existing information, or as the result of combat destruction).
I find this one interesting because my mom always led me to believe her father's parents were Germanic, but when I did my first DNA test, I had more Polish than anything, and when I told my mom, she said yes, her dad's parents were both Polish [my mom has like 0 interest in this sort of thing, so its no wonder] and well, her maiden name sounds German [technically, her paternal grandparents were from AH empire and Russia, but well, both were Actually Polish]
The probable scenario is that she was Prussian. Until the 1870's, there was no "Germany." And when Germany did appear on the map, a good portion was in modern day Poland. (And for MANY years, there was no Poland either, which had changed hands (and I am really simplifying things here) and been divided between Russia, Austria-Hungary, and Prussia. In Prussia, there were many ethnically Polish people, but there were also a good number of Germanic people as well. (And yes, they DID intermarry.) In my own family, which was from Prussia, but all from within modern-day Poland, there were ethnic Poles, but there were also ethnic Germans. These Germans, however (in my case) had become a bit Polonized. The German men had married Polish women, and in most cases were Catholic rather than Protestant. (Not the case for everyone, and there were plenty who remained Protestant. ) And in any case, yes, they too spoke Polish. The Poles were their neighbors, friends, and in many cases family, despite many tensions between the two groups over the years. When you look at our DNA, we do not resemble modern Germans, despite definite "German" ancestry. Rather, we resemble most the people of Poland, among whom we lived for hundreds of years. (In some cases, Germans were inhabiting the area since at least the 1300's. My guess is that your Grandma was right, in that she felt and identified as a German. But most likely, the family did not originate in the modern borders of Germany, but in the former Prussian areas of modern-day Poland. If you look at the vital records of 1874 onward, you will see that these "Polish" records are actually written in German.
The border between Germany and Poland switched or became muddled multiple times in history, so it's possible her family lived in one of the contested border regions that considered themselves culturally German, but were native Polish.
@@MR-or6yvit’s also possible that they arrived in the US at a time when Poles were discriminated against. Claiming to be German would be more socially acceptable. That presumes they arrived after 1871 when Germany formed of course.
sadly, she could have also given birth prematurely (common with twins) and one twin was weaker than the either. But you are right that we may never know for sure. Loss at the time was rarely an open topic.
We have many twins in our family and most of them were born prematurely.
Twins can become growth restricted in the womb causing premature birth, stillbirth or miscarriages. It’s more likely that the twins were premature as one passed away.
Exactly this!
I had similar questions when I realized my father was born only 7 months after his parents' wedding, but my dad and my grandma both confirmed he was born 2 months early after a very difficult pregnancy and traumatic delivery, and almost died as a newborn because of it.
We are better at kerping premature babies alive now. Would they have been too young to survive without modern technology at 7 months?
My girlfriend gave birth to twins 7 months after she got married with no hanky-panky. I know! But her brother never let her live it down. Plus they weighed 3 pounds each
A crossover I didn't expect! But absolutely love. Sometimes it can be really hard to trace people and this was one of them. The oyster pirating bit was really interesting to me.
I don't know if you will be able to share the DNA phase of the research, but I'd be really eager to see that if you can.
Yes!! Please don't leave us hanging !!!
I have been working on my family tree for the passed four years and am glad I’m not the only one who ran into those issues! Genealogy is a fun rabbit hole to fall into ❤
Came straight from Max’s!
Same!
❤Tasting History with Max Miller. What a mystery! I can't wait to see what you uncover.
Being a genealogist really is like being a detective, isn't it!! Complete with some of the same digging up of unexpected secrets 🤯Loved your explanation of your research journey, and the interesting historical side notes (like the oyster pirates! 🏴☠️)
Max's genealogy is a great example of how basic demographic records like censuses can bring to light some pretty unexpected family stories...? And how much lateral thinking is needed to reconnect the gaps caused by records loss, war, scandal & just plain typographical errors or phonetic spellings!
You can thank Max for sending me and I thank you for a very interesting look into Max's family tree. Never did I think when searching for a recipe would I enjoy these little snippets of history.👍
6:47 My great great grandparents worked in the KreisherFire brick factory in the 1890s on Staten gIsland. It’s really cool to see that here.
DANG! I'm invested. Love a good family mystery.
Came over from Tasting History, this was super fascinating. You've got yourself a new subscriber.
Did you look on Arkivverket for the guy in Arendal? I've discovered that many Norwegians who emigrated were tracked, from their home municipality, in the new land, for the purpose of local histories of the Norwegian community.
Oh yeah, those Scandinavian Parrish registers are wonderful aren’t they? Reading the handwriting can be a challenge and then you’ve got to translate it. I discovered that when I went looking for my Swedish ancestors in them.
Oh, the hidden family secrets, especially on my grandmother’s side! Her mother, my Great grandmother Alida, never talked about her family to her children at all. Somehow, my great aunt Dorothy did find out why and shared it in a letter to a cousin’s son that he has since posted on Ancestry decades after Dorothy passed. When Great Grandma Alida was 12, her mother died of appendicitis at just age 31. Her father tried to keep the family together, but gave up after a year, farmed his three eldest daughters out to his in-laws, put his only son Bill into a Chicago orphanage, and took the baby with him when he moved hundreds of miles away from the rest of his kids. It seems that all of those children resolved to forget everything about their family history because absolutely nothing was passed down to any of the descendants. I connected with Bill’s granddaughter through Wikitree, and she said her father told her that Bill took all of his family photos when he had his first house built and bricked them up behind the fireplace-he never wanted to see his father’s face again, understandably so, imo.
My Great Grandfather Jesse had a few stories to pass down, but just some vague details and one specific “fact” that my 6th great granduncle was Alexander Hamilton. (Turns out my research revealed that while I do have AN Alexander Hamilton in that spot, it’s not THE Hamilton. When I connected with a grandson of Jesse’s brother last month, I had to break that news to him, since that was the only story he had ever heard about his grandfather’s family. Bummed him right out.)
However, I did find out why Jesse might not have talked much else about his family. His mother, my 2nd great grandmother Carrie, walked out on her marriage when Jesse was just five. She took the girls with her, but had to leave the boys behind with her ex. It took her five years to get all four of her children back with her. She did (and paid) everything to do so, but I imagine a young Jesse just being really confused over why his mom was no longer with him. Then she went on to become a real independent woman with no interest in following society’s rules, which I can imagine that, if he even knew half of what his mom did in her 50s and 60s, Jesse was not interested in sharing with his impressionable daughters. (She spent the 1920s as a trance medium and Spiritualist pastor in Oklahoma City, and her third husband was a “divine healer.” She was arrested for illegal fortune telling and her appeal was reported in papers across the country, since she and her lawyer were trying to get the appellate court to rule on whether Spiritualism was a religion.)
Wow!!!
Could this have had something to do with the workhouses and why it was so difficult for carrie to get them back? this was a thing happening all the time where the kids got sent to the workhouses. Some had no parents while others because of financial reasons were given to other family members or left with the ex-wife or ex-husband, only for them to go under financially soon after or they simply decided they didn't want to look after them resulting in them sending the kids to the workhouses.
But there was a lot of cruelty going on back then in the workhouses and tried keep them there and wouldn't let the mothers or fathers get their kids back, it took a few years to get them back after persistently trying and they had to pay money to get them back. These workhouses started to be dismantled in 1930 but it took until 1948 until they no longer existed and knocked down but in that 18 year period they still existed and people of all ages were still caught in them.
The biggest thing influencing the culture back then was always finances because women still had to find suitors that made enough money to still live even a bit comfortably so there was a lot of moving around not knowing who would go down financially or because the husband or wife died and back then it was very common for women to die in or after childbirth.
Wow, I came here from max’s channel and watched the newest video. I have been stuck on research from my family on my moms side. They came from the Azores, and had their name Americanized. I know of the islands they came from, but have met a wall for the last few years. My dad was adopted and we have been able to find his mother, but unable to find his father. The fathers side of the family seemed like a bunch of weirdos, so we didn’t pursue with contact. Also, cool thing we found out, twins run like crazy on my dads side.
WOW very interesting. I love Tasting History. I also love genealogy which I am daily involved in for my own family tree. Have been watching this channel for genealogy discovery and greatly enjoy your research.
What a stirling piece of research! Hope you will update us if DNA provides further clues. I'm here from Max's channel, but you've just gained another subscriber.
Interesting, I have zero experience with serious genealogy. I did try to trace back my family history to the early 1900s at one point, but I think the issue you mentioned, of names getting tweaked, became my stumbling block. So interesting to see how much work goes into this process.
One side of my family changed their name 5 or more times (I forget exactly how much) in about a decade before and during WWI to sound less german!
If it's just tweaking, you can try to go by sound, let go of the spelling of names. It's really about the 'sounds like' factor. Oftentimes the person who wrote the name down didn't hear it well and just made something up he/she thought they heard.
Also take into account that some languages change certain letters, like in Spanish a W is pronounced like a B (example: Willy becomes Billy)
When in doubt, Wikipedia has excellent pages on languages and can sometimes help you further.
@@micahphilson - My German immigrant relatives named "Ewert" ("w" pronounced like a "v") changed their names to Evert and Everett in order to get jobs on the lead up to WW1 with its anti-German sentiment. However, I do not know what they did about their accents! ^_^
While it's certainly possible that Florence was expecting at her wedding it is also possible that she wasn't. She gave birth to twins and twins often come early. On top of that one of them died within a month so it is possible that the twins were quite early and the small twin had failure to thrive. Must have been so heartbreaking for the parents to lose the baby.
Twins are often born early. A single pregnancy lasts about 40 weeks, but a twin pregnancy often lasts between 35 to 37 weeks. More than half of all twins are born prematurely (before 37 weeks)
My German grandmother met my US grandfather in WWII. When she came to the US she forgot her German life. Said it wasn't worth worrying about. She still had her accent but never spoke her 1st language anymore. She didn't even like us to say we were German. I've always wanted to know more. At the end of her life, she would let things slip here and there but when she realized she did she would quit talking. I tried to get her to fill out one of those grandmother books and all the answers were barely a sentence. I feel like I lost out on a lot of things one does with their grandmother because of this. Don't get me wrong she was a wonderful woman. I miss her dearly and would give anything to have her back but sometimes when I see things like this I just wonder.
@R.P.-hw2rq we are Czech to be more accurate. She was born in 1928. When we asked about history she told us the here and now we live in is what is important.
I know, searching for census data in Germany is hard, two world wars and Soviet occupation will do that. I do suggest trying though. A place to start is if your Grandfather was in the military, he’d have to get permission to marry a foreign national and that form would have a lot of potentially useful information. If nothing else you might learn some German as a result, viel glück.
@CAP198462 that's great info. Thank you! They've both passed but I'm sure I can find something online now that I have a starting point instead of blindly going into it especially not knowing the language. Knowing "I love you" & "goodnight" is not going to get me to far lol.
Fascinating history and intriguing mysteries. It seems that many families have similar unexplained elements because they were topics not discussed openly even within the family. So such details are forgotten over time. Thanks for the research and sharing this part of history.
Thank you so much for doing this on our family! This is incredible. I definitely cried in the beginning. ❤️❤️❤️
So happy you enjoyed it! I was going to include a little blurb about the 1979 teachers strike but decided to cut it for time. I did see the photo you have of your grandmother at the strike and holding a picket sign!
Found you from Max Miller's link. Interesting content and I definitely subscribed
Lovely to share this as an admirer of Max. I am very fortunate as a Brit because records go back a long way and indeed my own family tree extends to 1208 when I think the family came from France.
Two of my favourite channels making a collab? Great!!
Oyster Pirates! I had no idea this was such a thing. My family settled in an oyster area in Cuba coming from Portugal in the late 19th Century. It would be interesting if they had any dealings with Florida and bringing oysters to the states.
So Max's maternal grandmother AND maternal great grandmother were both lifelong educators? And now he teaches me about history and food on the internet! Must be in the DNA! :)
love seeing how people trace their families back! both sides of my family have been doing research--i seriously need to get copies!--so i know some bits of history. however, i don't know much beyond my great-grandparents and where they lived in kentucky. did learn some interesting history regarding my maternal grandparents and how my mum was born 5 months after they married, and my great-grandparents on mum's side eloped when he was not given permission to marry grandma. from what i was told, he showed up on either a donkey or a mule and they snuck off to the next county over to get married :D
Where is part 2 with the DNA results to continue Max Miller's family story? Provide links to continue, please!!
Very interesting! I hope to see a part 2 with more information someday.
I spent some time researching similar strange name inconsistencies in my own family tree. This was from the late 1800s.
The names were similar, Olridge, Aldrich, Ullrick, etc. but I couldn't figure out why the records didn't match up. The story I discovered was absolutely fascinating. Turns out my 3rd great grandfather was kidnapped in New York around the age of 5 or 6 and was made to be a traveling street performer by his kidnapper. Several years later the kidnapper fell ill and died, leaving my ancestor stranded in Salt Lake City with no family at approximately 13/14 years old. Being so young when he was kidnapped, he didn't know how to spell his surname, so he just guessed on spelling whenever it was necessary. He got a job as a cattle herder and eventually settled down and married. Years later a traveling salesman came to the door and hearing my grandfather's name said that his wife had a younger brother with a similar name who was kidnapped 30 years ago. They put the pieces together and discovered that this traveling salesman was in fact his brother-in-law. My great grandfather was able to reconnect with his family and learned the true spelling of his name. However by that time he had already married and had children under an assumed spelling. So that is how the family name went from Ulrich (to Alrich to Ulrick to Oldridge) to Allridge.
Max looks so much like his maternal grandmother!! 😮
As a long islander, I love hearing some of Nassau county history (I’m in Suffolk county, Holbrook is the next town over from me)
I had a funny (to me) conversation with a distant cousin who couldn't imagine why the paternal line DNA test for one of our our officially-named great-great-great-grandfathers didn't match that of one of his middle son's branches of the family, from which my cousin descended. There was dead silence on the other end of the line when I suggested to my cousin that someone else could have fathered that son. I think his head finally exploded when I went on to suggest that the encounter might have been consensual, or not, from g-g-g-grandma's standpoint.
We have several instances in both sides of the family where women identified on the census as widows when their husband had been committed to an insane asylum, or after a divorce, or as head of family with an out-of-wedlock birth. In another case, a great-grandmother in the old country worked as a household servant in a town several valleys away from her hometown and bore a son to whom she gave her own family surname--the biological father not documented in Church or government records. A few years later, she had returned to her hometown and married a man with a different name, but our grandfather kept his mother's family name, which we have today.
@jomercer21113 - I have family in Iowa where a boy born in early 1900s is listed as the son of his mother's husband who had died TEN YEARS before his birth. Stretchy!
What an interesting tangle of mysteries! I’d done the tip about the name with family names before but never thought to try it on given names- I’ll have to give that a go for folks with more unique given names in my research!
So fun when two subscriptions collide - what a story there is all twisted up in there...hope you can share the results if any more facts come to light!
Here from Max’s channel! Fun to find you this stuff is so interesting to me.
Omg this is sooo exciting.. as a fan of max miller thank you for including him in your series!! Subscribe!!!!! ❤❤❤❤❤❤
I came from Max's channel and how interesting his genealogy is!
I'm rather intrigued to see what's in my family tree!
🤗👍♥️
At around 4:20 you suggest a shotgun wedding, as the person mentioned would have been 2 months pregnant at the time. You do realise that it isn’t unusual (especially at the time of these births) to give birth to twins prematurely. After all, it’s a lot of extra baby for the uterus to carry. So perhaps the babies in question weren’t conceived out of wedlock at all.
It’s just speculation either way this far down the line.
Good point. That could easily have been a Wedding Night pregnancy, or even a couple with an already planned wedding jumps the gun a little, thinking it won't make a different, only to end up with twins that come early. Eight weeks preemie is a little early to survive in those days though, but not impossible. I suspect she was 3-4 weeks pregnant at the time of her wedding, and likely didn't even know.
I've had a few people mention this and it isn't something I had realized previously, but it is definitely a good point to consider when analyzing the story. A perfect example of how each little piece of knowledge can help reshape a hypothesis. When I first realized the 7 month difference while researching, I researched how likely someone might know at 2 months pregnant but didn't check twins might be born at 7 months (didn't really even think about that). So I did have a bit of confirmation bias in the research for this hypothesis, but I also realized I didn't have true confirmation and that's why I made sure to say we may never know.
This is an excellent concept Jarrett. May I suggest you spend a little time on presentation quality (see Simon Whistler 3 year changes as example) to induce some prospective guests to participate. Also include a quick blurb at the beginning to ensure there is permission for disclosure etc. this builds confidence in both potential guests and our view of your professionalism and integrity. Becomes part of your YT story. Good luck and a great concept rather than the earlier Impressions.
Always working to improve! Thank you for the kind words. 😀
@@GeneaVlogger you and your site have enormous potential. Be uncompromising in your integrity, consistent in your delivery times, incorporating tight relational historical events and reflect to your audience the compassion and excitement of your findings. Max can give you the feedback better than I can.
I noticed something that looked weird to me at 17:59
In the birthplace section it has the following listed: (City or town): Norway. (Country or State): Sweeden.
I noticed this because Sweden is misspelled and as far as I know we don't have a small town named after our neighbor country. Neither do I believe that we ever spelt Sweden with two "E". Figured it would be worth pointing it out in case you think there's more to it.
Came immediately from Max's video! Excited to see two awesome channels i watch collab!
So fascinating! Great tips for researching your family tree.
Hard tack, clack-clack! 😄
Here from Max' channel 🤠
Will you be posting a follow-up video, please? 💜
Yes! I will also be doing other episodes exploring other lines of Max's family tree as well! For each guest on my UA-camr Family Trees series, I plan to multiple videos on their families.
@@GeneaVlogger Cool can't wait to see more on Max's tree.
This is incredible, part two with DNA would be amazing if possible!!! ❤
Yes! 2 of my favorite channels!
I love Max.., this will be fascinating
Great video!
This is so exciting! I watch both of you….
I just started following Max's channel, so I'm really looking forward to finding out where DNA leads you. And here I thought MY family history was convoluted!
This makes me think of that old novelty song, "I'm My Own Grandpa"
😆
Can't wait for next installment!
New viewer here from Max's channel 👋🙂
OMG SO HAPPY TO SEE THIS! 👏🏽
Please see if you can do a video on Bruce Fumey of Scotland History Tours. Thanks.
I have a reaction coming up on my Professional Genealogist Reacts channel to one of Bruce's videos. 😀
Just a thought. Twins are often born early and that may have been the reason why one of the twins didn’t make it. Making it not a shotgun wedding.
@katharinegarrison2568 - Or, if the woman WAS pregnant at the marriage, it doesn't mean it was a "shotgun wedding". The two people make have truly been in love and wanted to marry.
People change their names for all kinds of reasons. When my dad was a child, in southern Russia, his name was Johann, but he was variously called Hans, Vanya and Ivan, depending on who he was talking to :) When he came to Canada in 1925, he kept the initial H for his first name, and picked Howard. I have no idea where that came from. He chose John as his second name, because that's the English version of all the other names (except Howard). He kept his last name, but his grandfather had long before changed the spelling of the name for business reasons. So he was known to all in Canada as H. John ... :)
Interesting. Was your dad Volga German? Because there used to be German communities in what was the Russian Empire up until the mid to late 1930s when the Soviet Union committed several attacks on the Volga German communities which resulted in many dead and many more exiled from their homeland. That would explain why he was called Johann when he lived in Russia. If you want there are several resources online covering the Volga Germans but I have to warn you the article on the Great Purge is sickening. A lot of lives were lost because of suspicions held by the Soviets about the intellects and Bolsheviks as well as those who protested the government at the time.
@@mirandagoldstine8548 My dad was born and raised in Molochna colony, the oldest of the Mennonite colonies in that area, closest to the Black Sea. Two of his uncles were executed by the bolsheviks for ... being alive? They fled to Germany and sailed to Canada in 1925. The stories of that time are horrendous, especially those told of a man called Machno, who was one of the thousands released from prisons and asylums as the bolsheviks moved south. He gathered a gang around him, and was responsible for many atrocities. The Volga Germans, who suffered similarly, were a more diverse group, mostly Catholic and Lutheran, I think.
My mother's maternal grandparents also changed names when they arrived in America but in their case they were Austrian Jews and had been chased out of several regions due to changing attitudes about Jews. When they came to America they decided to give themselves a French last name and claimed they were Catholic. They were just tired of the persecution.
@@meedwards5 The desire to fit into a new community is probably a really common reason for people to change their names. I hope they found the better life they were seeking.
Here from Max's video. This is all so interesting. I'm curious about my family genealogy. I have someone on I think my mom's side who's traced one of the branches back to WWI, Then he lost the trail...
Awesomeness 👌
Cool seeing this stuff, my family history was wiped out so i get to see other peoples
My paternal grandmother's maiden name was Hulse. I had never heard that name other than related to my own family tree until now. I always wonder about that family. Twelve kids with only two male. The two men married as did two of the women including my grandmother who didn't marry until she was in her thirties. The rest of "the aunts" lived together in a big family house, remaining unmarried their entire lives.
How funny! My grandparents were also named Robert and Virginia! 😅
Some of my ancestors were oyster planters down in the Chesapeake Bay, in Virginia :) I wonder if the cultures were similar or different between oyster planters in the south and north
Lillian Mae Hults was my grandfather Thomas Smull Smith's first wife. She died in 1919 and my grandfather remarried to my grandmother in 1920.
BTW family lore is that Lillian's mother had been a prostitute, and Holbrooks parents removed her from her home when she was a child and brought her to Port Washington.
Do you know if any of your half-1st cousins through Thomas and Lillian have done DNA tests? Would love to compare them to Max's mother and see if they match as full 2nd cousins or half-2nd cousins.
My half Cousin Lynn, granddaughter of Lillian has an autosomal DNA available on Ancestry and GEDMatch if you're interested. There's only one other half cousin living, but he's not interested in his family history.
Reading your 2nd comment and that is very interesting to hear! Especially intriguing since Holbrook was an officer.
Send me an email at GeneaVlogger@gmail.com. Max's mother Pam is in GEDmatch, so we should be able to run a one-to-one comparison!
Excellent! Can't wait for the DNA results!
Pooh I hope there will be a part two!
Maybe not a shotgun wedding. Premature births are not uncommon with twins. Still... Those who study DNA and family trees say that somewhere around half of those who take the test find surprises and shocks.
One thought about Florence and the timing of the birth of there twins: it MAY have been a shotgun wedding but twins are usually born earlier. Research shows that half of twin pregnancies are 37 weeks instead of the usual 40.
this is great!
Holy crap! Max looks just like his grandma
I wish this guy could do this for me cause I genuinely know nothing about my heritage at all and crave a belonging in culture
OMG, does Max look like grandma Virginia.
thanks
Sent from Max!!
Watching on behalf of Max
I would probably try putting the oysters on a muffin tin, so the muffin spaces would hold the shells more or less upright… no idea if that would work, though.
@jennypaxton8159 - I tried that recently when I was out of Kosher salt. It did not work for me. I ended up putting the oysters in a cake pan, balancing them on the top of their shell "lid". It worked okay, but not great. The wet salt works well as the shells can nestle down in the salt without tipping.
This was so Cool!
TastingGenealogy
TastingVlogger
GeneaTasting
I plan on doing my family’s genealogy, I’m from Alabama so it should be easy. Our family tree only has 1 branch.
Will there be a part 2 with the Miller tree 🌳?
While each episode will be coming out months apart, there will likely be many episodes just on Max's family tree. For the Miller side, we had Max take a Big-Y DNA Test from FTDNA 😉
An onscreen graphic of the speculated family tree every now & then as you go along would be such a help, if it were not too much extra work to edit in...? I was definitely getting a bit lost towards the end there...although it sounds like that was more or less your team's experience, too!! 🤭
Amazing to know how just following one person's ancestry can bring so many apparent mysteries to light - intrigued to see what new leads the DNA testing provides you all.
An eager bride can sometimes do in seven months what takes a cow or a countess nine.
I would like to work for you for free as a volunteer. And it is tough finding a job that involves my love of researching.
I've traced my family tree to 1750ish NY but can not find where either of them came from.
Max's mother may have taught my mother and her siblings.. small world!
Max looks like his grandma, Virginia ❤
That was interesting. I wonder if Lyle would do a calibration of doing a genealogy with you? Lyle, is from Scotland but grew up in Australia. He also is a YTer. His YT channel is Patrol Nation.
I'm sorry, but I can't get over how unusually serious he looks in the thumbnail.
While I was researching my own family tree, I discovered that information provided to the Census takers were not always truthful.
Twins are often born early. Being premature would explain the death of one twin. There was no reason to insult the memory of a woman who isn't here to defend her virtue.
My grandpa did our genealogy waaaay back to the time of Charlemagne. I'm related to Guilford Dudley who married Lady Jane Grey (queen until Bloody Mary had her head and Guilford's heads chopped off), the "special friend" of the virgin queen, 2 very famous criminals, Martha Washington, and more. The most recent slightly famous is my great aunt who is considered the grandmother of the art of chainsaw carving.
Also, 2 months early is not shocking for twins especially back then, and if they were premature one dying so young would not be at all shocking either.
I am blessed that I can trace my fathers sie back to the 15. Century. Not so much on my mother and my wies sides.
My cousin and I are trying to uncover something too 😳 my cousins are each others cousins makes our aunt her first cousin. Our aunt comes out as unassigned to me on ancestry.
Came from Maxs video
I wish I could know more about my dad’s father’s father’s family. I have very little to no knowledge of them. I think my great, great grandfather’s name is Joseph Scott Toler, but beyond that I have no knowledge of their lives, professions, and other details about them as regular people. The my father’s father’s great grandfather was a mayor of East Bank, WV. I have very little knowledge of him either. My Grandpa’s parents both died at an early age. My great grandma died from childbirth, my great grandpa Toler died by being stabbed in the back at least seven times by his brother in law (supposedly, I can’t find out for sure, I’m just given the information from his son). Anyone else confused as I am by now? Ugh.
Hey I was just wondering I took a dna test and I was expecting to be 25% indigenous and 75% white. My results came back as 97% white and 3% black. No indigenous. Could this be a mistake or have I been lied to? I’m adopted.